Living In History

As this post publishes I will be somewhere in London in the middle of my very last Games Maker 2012 shift. I posted here about my Olympics experience and when I get home and organised I will post about my day at the Paralympics too.

Just for now though, on this final day, I wanted to share my thoughts on the whole London 2012 event.

I’m not going to lie, despite applying to be a Games Maker, I wasn’t really that interested. I thought it was going to be an over-expensive, disaster riddled flop. I didn’t think everything would be built on time or very well, I didn’t think the event as a whole would be successfully organised and I fully expected us as a country to be aloof and snooty as we sometimes are.

I was pleasantly proved wrong.

Instead I have watched unfold an event that will definitely go down in our country’s history as a triumph. It has not been without issues but they have all been dealt with sensibly, efficiently and quickly. It has not been cheap to produce but instead of the cost being entirely frivolous effort has been made to re-use and recycle as much as possible – right down to the sand in the Beach Volleyball courts.

I might not like the way everything was handled – for example I think some of the branding policing was a bit over the top – but the overall result was amazing.

We pulled together as a country and made it work. We made people welcome and as I mentioned previously, the streets became the place to be. Everyone was friends with everyone else, people were helpful and funny and the atmosphere was light and electric.

I was a cynic. I was proved wrong.

In the best possible way.

Team GB 2012 : Our Greatest Team.

All of us. The athletes and their coaches and friends and family, the people at LOCOG, the Games Makers and everyone else too. All of you. All of us.

WE were Team GB and WE made it happen the way it did. No amount of organising could create the atmosphere in the country over the last few weeks – that was just down to us.